For the December quarter (the three months ending in December 31, 2012), Tecmo Koei posted revenues of ¥22.2 billion ($238.4m/£151.5m). That's only up 6.5 per cent on the same period the previous year. The exciting number is the net profits, which jumped 291.7 per cent to ¥2.6 billion ($27.9m/£17.7m).
That's right. Nearly 300 per cent profit increase. And most interestingly? That profit didn't come from either mobile or online gaming, which is the direction every other publisher seems to be pointing at the moment. Tecmo Koei's online and mobile division actually reported a 10 per cent drop in sales to ¥3.8 billion ($40.8m/£25.9m).
I suspect the reason for that was the company didn't bother releasing an iPhone or iPad game in that three month period in 2012. When you're selling bucketloads of console games, you probably don't need to, either.
So we'll celebrate this good news with a lovely picture of Hitomi. Actually, I'm really not surprised Tecmo Koei had a good quarter. Not when Dead or Alive 5 was out there with DLC and stuff.
13 comments:
I'm pretty sure the 300% increase is due to deferred payment of Team Ninja's revenue share from all those sold copies of Metroid Other M.
hahahah!
But no really, Dynasty Warriors and DoA must have done some heavy lifting. A good way to end this generation, Tecmo-Koei's board is probably not looking forward to this next generation of platform investments.
Pai Chan
Pai was a great import, though Hitomi will always be my #1 gal.
I do think is interesting that the Japanese publishers performing the best -Tecmo Koei and Namco Bandai, are not specifically targeting the western market. It seems that going after the second biggest market is still a profitable proposition ;-)
I have so, so much respect for the TK business model. It is the perfect example of what happens when your games sell at high margin.
TK sells its mobile games at $20, and because it reuses the Warriors engine for so much it can create a wide range of themes Warriors games cheaply. This means that when they sell well - and inevitably they do in Japan, there is healthy profit there for TK.
What happens when you have healthy profit? You can explore riskier ideas. TK acquires GUST, which does brilliantly for it. It experiments with western games, such as that Gears of War clone, Quantum Theory, and even makes a Warriors game specifically targeted to the west in Legends of Troy. These games missed the mark, but that's ok because TK was healthy enough to absorb risk.
And the end winner is us gamers because TK ends up producing more stuff that more people love. A true model for the entire industry.
so because they made so much money, that is why they are actually supporting DOA5 and it's update patches.
yet they ignored NG3, now it makes many of the fans right that they did betray them.
Release Sigma 3 and we'll be happy
Well there is Razor's Edge. Yes its for Wii U, but I have a friend who has it, it's pretty solid, and hopefully Nintendo won't Bitch at Tecmo Koei when they decide their ready to port it to other systems.
I wouldn't say they ignored NG3 at all. Yes, the PS3/ Xbox 360 game didn't go down well with fans, but it was a genuine attempt at doing something original with the franchise. People complain so much that this industry is dominated by sequels that are exactly the same as the previous game, but it takes real risk to try and change the formula.
And then TK took on fan criticism to vastly improve the Wii U "port" of the game. Another significant investment.
TK can do that because TK is profitable. Any other company would have stuck to a regular sequel and a unoptimised port.
love the pic!
I thought it was a fair reflection of the success Tecmo Koei had with Dead or Alive 5, haha.
It depends on their growth targets...at their size, if they wanna grow they gotta look beyond the Japanese market. Japan's console scene is already in the midst of steady contraction. As the years roll by this coming cycle we will see more consolidation and mergers, and closings too unfortunately.
Thats not strict Doom and Gloom, but it dictates change and perhaps necessitates a return to smaller teams and budgets. That really makes me wonder how healthy the game start-up scene is over there...I don't hear much of anything at all outside of some notable indies that make it over to the west, ala Pixel.
Well, the Japanese games market might be changing (it is changing, actually), but it's not going away. The money's just going elsewhere. Japanese companies can do one of two things - target the western markets (Square Enix), or go where the money is. Tecmo Koei seems to be doing that. It's acquiring into niche markets (such as GUST), and is investing in high margin products - such as the Warriors engine running 10 odd games per year.
I'm glad that koei-Tecmo made a profit, even though their games have been pretty terrible compared to last gen (except for ninja gaiden 2 and DOA 4 and 5). But I seriously want another kessen. they were my favouritegames on the PS2. Please release kessen 4 Koei,
Oh I agree, a new Kessen game would be awesome. TK just released Kessen 2 on the PSN as a PS2 Classics in the UK, and I would love to see a HD one.
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